The Inner Mechanism
by Simolutionist
Summary: The famous city, the metropolis where Prey and Predator live alongside each other in harmony, protected by the mighty metal walls which protected it from outside influences for many centuries. Its inhabitants live their lives alongside the machines and metal constructs, gifted with light by the sun-like orb situated at its top. This is Zootopia, the great sphere.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

It was dark in the room. Thick curtains prevented almost all the light from the outside to shine through the single window and the door was shut tight. The sounds of bed sheets shifting slowly could be heard, along with a grumble in a somewhat annoyed tone, after which the sound of feet hitting the ground followed.

The sound of shifting sheets stopped and were replaced with slow and weary steps, the repeated thumps stopping after a short while. Suddenly, the sheets were pulled down and the room was filled with the bright rays of the outside sun.

Jules held his right arm in front of his eyes for a moment, then turned around, moving towards the wooden dresser in the room. Reaching it, he first stretched himself, yawning soundly, before opening it and taking out a white button-down shirt and brown trousers, proceeding to dress himself.

 _Another day like any other. Come on, J, you can do this, it's just the waking up part that bothers you_ , Jules thought to himself, moving towards the door, opening it and stepping out into the hallway.

It was a rather average place he saw before him. It was on the second floor, the ground was wooden, with a blue carpet laying just in front of the stairs that offered a view on the first floor. There were 4 doors, one being the door to the bedroom he just left, the one on the opposite leading to a rather average bathroom where Jules usually spent a lot of time bathing in, and two others, one what could be considered a very spacious broom closet, though Jules spent little time in there, and another bedroom for guests.

Having spent enough time examining his familiar surroundings, he started to move towards the stairs before stopping and sniffing for a while.

It seems like someone started working early, he thought, starting to move down the stairs with a joy-filled expression.

"Darling, what is that wonderful smell?", he asked in a loud and warm tone.

As he reached the end of the stairs, he looked left, seeing his wife kneading dough on one of the wooden tables while something seemed to bake in the oven at the end of the room. Judging by the ashes among the fire under the oven, it wasn't the first and naturally wouldn't be the last.

"You ask that every morning. Can't you think of something original?", she asked in a seemingly annoyed tone, causing Jules to look surprised. However, she suddenly laughed, stopped working on the dough and moved towards Jules for an embrace. "Oh, you know that's just what I love about you. You're just **so** predictable!"

Jules embraced her happily, both of them laughing. "I love you, too, Sam.", Jules said, which caused his wife to hit his chest in mock anger. "Don't call me that, it's embarrassing!", she said, a smile on her face. "Fine, fine. I love you, too, _Samantha_." As he said that, she quickly returned to her work, leaving Jules standing in the room, smiling.

Turning around, he moved through the open doorway leading to the entrance where he and his wife sold the baked goods that were being prepared in the back. He looked right, seeing the wooden post where his jacket and hat were hanging, which he promptly grabbed.

Quickly dressing himself further with those two, he moved towards the entrance door, but not before turning around once more. "I'll be gone for a bit. Don't worry, I'll bring back groceries!", he said, after which he finally opened and moved through the door onto the street.

Breathing in the air slowly, he simply stood there for a while, observing the surroundings. _Nothing better than fresh air in the morning_ , he thought to himself, watching other animals walk along the paved streets, small weeds growing in-between the cracks, and looking at the houses around him.

Most of the houses were built with bricks, though some smaller ones were simple constructs of wooden planks, even though they only served as either small shops or warehouses, but nobody in this area used them as homes.

Jules was a bit shocked as he heard the loud noise of the Southwind Clock, the large metal clock standing near the southern gates to the inner Zootopia, and in reaction he corrected his hat. After briefly glancing to his left once more, he started to move north towards Zootopia, looking at the intimidating sheets of metal.

 _No matter how often I see this thing, I never get used to it. Can't imagine why anyone would build a home in the centre of a massive metal bowl anyways._

Thinking that, he continued his way towards the gates, not once losing sight of the great metal sphere.


	2. Chapter 1 - A bad day

_**Chapter 1**_

 **Clank!**

The bear stood still in shock, holding his breath while looking at the sheet of metal on the ground.

"Sorry!"

He looked up to spot the source of the voice, spotting a Racoon on a scaffold, one of the mammals that were repairing damages in the entrance gate's mechanism, who looked at him with an apologetic yet cheeky smirk on his face, shrugging. The bear exhaled in obvious relief, for a moment glancing towards the metal again before shaking his head and quickly moving on.

"Not **my** fault.", said a voice to the right of Karl, a gray fox Karl just calls Gray "My turn or yours?"

Karl sighed, shook his head with a slight smile on his face and moved towards the scaffold's ladder. As he reached it, he grabbed the end of one of the ropes - that were connected to the gate's metal beams - laying next to it, dropped it down the scaffold's front side and proceeded to climb down. _Atleast it didn't fall on his head_ , Karl thought to himself. _Then again, atleast it didn't fall on_ _ **mine**_ _..._

Trying to forget the image he etched into his mind, he looked at his surroundings, the familiar southern quarter of Zootopia. It was one of the more delightful places in the city, with clean streets, straight and neatly decorated houses and bustling activity. Atleast most of the time.

As Karl continued to climb down, he got in a spot to examine the gate's entrance itself. It was opened, although just enough to let people through. Most transportations had a difficult time fitting through, and the southern quarter was mostly used for such things, bringing goods in and out of the city. However, somehow the mechanism that was responsible for opening and closing the gate was damaged, causing it to budge.

 _Serves them right I say, those reckless people, always ignoring me while barging through here!_ , Karl thought to himself. _As if fearing for my life would raise my mood._

Nonetheless, he had work to do. As he reached the ground level, he moved towards the metal sheet, taking the end of the long rope he had dropped in one hand and proceeding to tie it around the object, taking occasional glances at the visible part of the inner city.

The inner city - the places that were called the Second and Third Rings of the sphere - was the epicenter of Zootopia. Most businesses develop around the Second Ring, having easy access to a diverse workforce in most, if not all, areas needed. The police patrolled this part the most, and the local government focused most of its projects on improving the state of affairs in it. After all, it was technically the one part of the city that everyone remembers, especially tourists. The result was a large part of the city that was kept as clean as it goes and had a relatively low crime rate.

While Karl pondered about these things, he spotted two policemen, both wolves, escorting what seemed to be a weasel across the street. Judging by their demeanour, it wasn't a VIP.

 _How rarely I see the police. If only they would care a bit about the Outer Ring, but noo, it's not worth their time! Bastards._

He glanced once more at the center, focusing on the massive building towering over all others, the center of government and also the seat of probably the most influential of companies within the city and located inside the Third - the inner - Ring.

"Hey! Could you hurry it up a bit?", Gray shouted from above.

"Er, yes, of course! Sorry for the wait!", Karl shouted back as he finished his work on the rope, quickly moving back up the scaffold.

As he reached the top, he witnessed how Gray just finished tying the upper end of the rope to the lifting mechanism, basically just a rotatable piece of metal fixed to the entrance's wall and connected to a motor, before rubbing his paws and pushing down the lever next to it.

Nothing happened.

 _Another damaged machine? But it worked just fine not long ago._

As Karl pondered about this, Gray already used the lever again, pushing it up and down. Both Karl and Gray looked in confusion.

"Well, I suppose we have another machine to fix. Are ye up for it?", Gray said to Karl.

"Heh, no, **this** is your turn. I'll just go and see if it's not something with the energy line.", Karl responded to Gray to which Gray merely answered: "Guess I deserved that. Well, go on then."

* * *

Karl was moving along the energy lines, well fixed on the houses and sometimes on the ground but well hidden for anyone not familiar to them, whistling the tune of a song he once heard. On his way to the power output, he noticed that more police than usual was moving around, many seeming to move in the same direction.

 _Huh. Maybe it's a sort of drill._

He ignored the conversations between angry citizen and helpless policemen, however he did overhear talk of machines ceasing to work for no apparent reason. As he moved closer to his destination, though, it became apparent why the police was so present here and where exactly they were moving.

 _Goodness, I've rarely seen so much police at one place!_

Karl observed the gathering of mammals of all kinds with police uniforms and seemingly upset citizen. To him, it seemed like a local party that went wrong. However, he couldn't fail to notice how the police basically herded everyone away from the center of the commotion - the power output.

 _Why, that's just very unusual..._

As Karl focused more on it, he widened his eyes slightly and narrowed his eyebrows in confusion and disbelief. The place where all the power lines led to, one of the many energy outputs dotted all over the sphere's inner wall, was different than usual.

First of all, it did not glow in the familiar mix of green and blue light it used to glow in. In fact, there was no light at all, simply a giant copper-looking hole dotted with further metal output extenders - lines used to divert the output in different directions, a true masterwork which Karl still didn't quite understood.

 _Completely besides the point, though. Why is it no longer glowing?_

The second part that was wrong about it was that several machines in the surrounding area simply stopped to function for no apparent reason. However, looking at the output, Karl suspected that it somehow ceased to provide energy, inevitably rendering the machines useless as they were specifically built to harness whatever energy was provided by the sphere.

 _But that just can't be right. These things provided power to us for decades, and they've been glowing for far longer than that! They can't just stop working... can they?_

While pondering upon these strange questions, he strangely didn't notice that he moved rather close to it, almost slipping through the lines of police due to his small size. However, a tigress noticed him.

"You there, sir! Step away from the source! We're doing the best we can, but this place is off-limits fo-" "Of course, of course, I understand, I didn't mean to, er... to get this close. Sorry."

The policewoman had her eyebrows slightly narrowed downwards, likely because of the interruption, but there were far more, far less compliant citizen around. She simply waved him off.

 _I guess I should go back to Gray and bring him the news. Or maybe he found a solution, who knows?_

Karl moved away, starting the trek back to the scaffold with a solemn look on his face.

 _I have a bad feeling about this day..._

* * *

 _I have a_ _ **terrible**_ _feeling_ _about this day..._

Mira held her hands to her head. She had every reason to think the way she did, she never experienced a worse headache than this morning. She didn't drink the other day, she did nothing too stressful and she felt perfectly fine as she went to sleep. A strong sign that the day would end up terrible.

But she has to attend the meeting. Of course before that, she has to meet up with Roy to talk **about** the meeting, along with other things.

 _But before_ _ **that**_ _, I should probably eat breakfast._


End file.
